Attached Link: http://www.renderosity.com/mod/gallery/index.php?image_id=1327307

Here's my first entry since my statement of asking for hard criticism.  True to my word, what could I have done to make this image better.  Especially since this was my entry into the "Wake the Dead" Competition.

mdb

I like the lighting on the skeleton a lot. A couple of things I could suggest - the stars all have a very similar brightness (on this crappy monitor anyway, so this may not be an issue) which sort of makes them look more like illuminated snow flakes than a distant starry night which has a whole range of star brightnesses. The second is that the skeleton is meant to be a ghost - perhaps playing with the transparency of the skeleton would make it match the story closer (but you may lose some of that cool lighting you've got going if you do this, so this might be a bad idea). The other thing is - the moon looks an odd shape - i.e. sort of oblongish rather than circular - this might be some bryce weirdness to do with your POV - not sure.

Pretty good pic all over though - I've always found night time pics real hard to get looking right, but you've done well in my opinion.

Dreams are just nightmares on prozac...
Digital WasteLanD

I know a trick for the stars; turn down the intensity, and turn up the number of 'em. They look more realistic that way. Keep 'em coming

 

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For me, I thought my big success was the night clouds, Thanks for the pointers too. Improvements for future images or reposts are good to have.

As understand it - and after researching stuff for railways I've become a bit of an expert - the rails should be held onto the sleepers with spikes.............you did ask....!  (In the UK we use a kind if spring-thingy)

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All the Woes of a World by Jonathan Icknield aka The Bryster

And in my final hours - I would cling rather to the tattooed hand of kindness - than the unblemished hand of hate...

:c)  Not a problem Bryster.  I did consider adding fishplates, squarebolts, spikes and all that, but that would have involved too much modelling for me to do I think.  So I let it stand pat with what I had.
mdb

Yeah, mboncher, the night sky and cloudwork and lighting is pretty good - better than what I got on my attempt for sure.

Dreams are just nightmares on prozac...
Digital WasteLanD

But, but.... where is the train???

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Thought about putting one in, but felt it would compete too much with the central image.  So assume the train is off in the distance behind you and the poor wretch is waving and wailing to it right in front of you trying to flag it down.

I've ideas for doing a few images based on stories from my book on Ghost Trains.  There's of course the Legend of John Henry who's said to still haunt the tunnel in which he died.  Bill McKeon's Ghost that walked the tracks looking for his lost watch, attacking those who may have stolen it.  The Ghost Train of Marshall Pass that threatened an engineer from the grave.  Dread 109, the "Hoodoo" engine of the Denver & Rio Grande that took railmen's lives like a gunfighter of old.  If I really had tallent, I'd do "The Man in the Derby Hat" of a decomposing phantom who's visage mirrored his body's deterioration through the years.  The Express Train to Hell, "witnessed "by 600 people in the 1880s who heard a train that wasn't there pull into the Newark Broad St. Station.  The piece de resistance would be to do Lincoln's Funeral Train.  It is said that on the anniversary of his funeral, his ghost train runs the tracks from New York towards Springfield, with a massive host of the fallen from the Civil War paying homage as his revenant train passed, never to make it to his restingplace in Springfield.  That would be something else to do.  The laundry list of models and whatnot I'd need I'm just not going to try it till I'm rich and famous or become a good modeller. :c)

mdb

Mboncher: Woah Long list of spookey trains and stuff. Remind me not to travel on Railways in the USA...

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All the Woes of a World by Jonathan Icknield aka The Bryster

And in my final hours - I would cling rather to the tattooed hand of kindness - than the unblemished hand of hate...

And I haven't even touched on "wreck re-enactments" , Ghostlights and headless ghosts, let alone much about haunted tunnels and related "trackside" hauntings like Screaming Jenny.  Oh yeah... there's lots.  But I'm sure GB has it's fair share as well.